When we're not sleeping, we're gaming. Mostly.

Star Wars Campaigns Revisited #2 – West End Games Converted to Beta

Run from the 22nd of November 2013 to the 17th of July 2015 over 35 sessions.

I decided to switch my Star Wars d6 RE game over to Star Wars Edge of the Empire once I had a chance to go through the new rulebook as it was easier to read than the beta I had picked up a year earlier. Most of my players were hesitant at first to change systems but grew to like it more as the dice helped the game with the players being able to read the result.

The release schedule was such that I was running the beta of Age of Rebellion with the Core Rules of Edge of the Empire using the Beta for Edge of the Empire as a 2nd reference for players. Everyone built a new character using these rules and we started off doing more adventures from my library.

This is the list of published rules for Fantasy Flight Games and with the release of Force and Destiny as a rulebook I closed the campaign in preparation of using the Beginner games to get a greater understanding of the mechanics of play having mostly winged it during these adventures.

The Beta and Core Rules books for FFG’s Star Wars system

Edge of the Empire Beta released – August 2012 (SW EotEB)

Edge of the Empire Core Rules – July 2013 (SW EotE)

Age of Rebellion Beta – September 2013 (SW AoRB)

Age of Rebellion Core Rules – July 2014 (SW AoR)

Force and Destiny Beta released – September 2014 (SW F&DB)

Force and Destiny Core Rules – July 2015 (SW F&D)

Star Wars dice.

One thing that I noticed from running WEG adventure in SW EoTE, AoR and F&D is that as numbers where not used in most places, and stated difficulties were, they adventures simply transferred with little to no modifications needed.

The difference between WEG and FFG books at first glace is the beautiful artwork of FFG. The scale of the characters involved is also at the low end of the spectrum with no earth shattering force use. While force use is powerful, it is not the completely overwhelming power of the other system. Damage output of a Jedi is at least on par with any other character, unlike any other version I have run over the years.

The initiative system is nice, either the party goes as one, or everyone does individual roles, and they become party slots vs opponent slots and any player can take any party initiative slot on the consensus of the group.

The three core mechanics for each rules supplement also appear to have different effects:

Edge of the Empire – Obligation – A penalty of no experience expenditure if you allow it to get too large, and if it triggers in a session/adventure you become easier to take out as your strain threshold is reduced

Age of Rebellion – Duty – A reward as it grants gear and vehicles to the party, and if it triggers in a session/adventure you become harder to kill with your wound threshold increasing

Force and Destiny – Morality – A harsh system where your companions can cause your character to fall to the dark side and either become a NPC or a drain on party resources to use your abilities as you try to redeem yourself.

A character can potentially have all three of these mechanics applied to their character, but only gain morality if they have a force rating. I stated that all dark side characters are instantly NPCs as I did not have any redeem storylines planned for this campaign due to issues.

Here are the adventures I ran in the Core Rules with Beta books. Again most of the details are left out as I intend to run them again as only one of my players is still around and may not remember these as well I as do. They ran for an average of 5 sessions per adventure.

Strike Force: Shantipole (Classic Adventure v5 – Ken Rolston and Steve Gilbert) A six episode adventure that introduced new starfighters to the rebellion if they survive.

Scavenger Hunt (Brad Freeman) A six episode adventure where just the poster map of the imperial shuttle with the adventure was worth the price of the book. The adventure was fun to run

Battle for the Golden Sun (Douglas Kaufman) A six episode adventure in an aquatic environment

Otherspace (Bill Slavicsek) A seven episode excursion where people where never meant to tread

The Long Shot Campaign (Classic Campaigns – Paul Murphy, Bill Smith & Ed Stark) Has some good ideas, though required more ad-lib to run than most of the other adventures in this series